NEW DISCUS GROWING ON JOURNAL

I'm starting this journal for two reasons. Firstly to show how good sourced discus grow and thrive in the right conditions and secondly to show how with the right care and conditions discus keeping isn't too difficult but just a bit more time consuming.

INTRODUCTION

I've been keeping tropical fish now for around 6 years but only really caught the bug properly around 2 years ago. In this time I've gone from a community set up that with shame I admit I mistreated and rarely cleaned to having a large 500 litre living room "display" tank and a small bedroom with 5 tanks that I use to grow on and breed fish. I've always loved the elegance of discus but was always discouraged by people perceptions of them being too difficult. As I had gained a lot more experience I bit the bullit and decided to buy some local bred discus (MISTAKE #1). These I then found out were poor specimens of this lovely species of fish. They were badly shaped and showed a lot of peppering. I was told by the seller that this is present in all young discus and will fade with age, which is total rubbish. I had no problems with these fishes health but they weren't the fish I wanted so decided to look for some more. When looking in our local aquarist retailers you often see poor quality discus at silly prices. This doesn't need to be the case at all. After being recommended Steve gilley at Durham discus I seen how nice these fish can be in his fish house and at that point found my new source. He is an encyclopedia of discus knowledge and is always giving advice out freely. He advised me that the best way of keeping discus trouble free is to stick with one source and not just accumulate fish from all over and hope for the best. He told me about quarantine and cross contamination, the right diet and water change regimes etc. So I did what any impatient youngfishkeeper does and ignored some of his advice (MISTAKE #2). I bought 6 New young discus to add straight to my 4 poor quality ones at home. Out of the two groups after a week only one of the groups remained on this planet. Through cross-contamination
I'd wiped out the 4 bad fish. This was a blessing in disguise but it taught me straight away how mixing these fish can be lethal!

This was around a year ago and I'm pleased to say I have reared these fish to adulthood and even had them pairing off and breeding. Infill recently when I lost the smaller out of the group.

So through this thread I hope to encourage fellow fish-keepers of this region to try these stunning fish called discus.

More to follow.....

THE NEW DISCUS

I've purchased 6 tony tan discus from Durham discus. These are 2 Zorro leopards, 1 spotted leopard, 1 blue turk, 1 red turk and 1 golden emporer. These are all around the 6cm mark or there abouts. When buying new fish its good to go for nice chunky specimens which are active and colourful.

THE GROWING ON SET UP.

I will he using a fluval Roma 200 litre tank for the growing on period. It has and external filter and a sponge filter running. It only has a sand substrate with no dector at all for ease of maintenance. A bare bottomed tank is good practice too but as ill be housing sterbai corys and a couple of bn plecs I prefer a substrate for their benefits. The temperature will be kept at 31oC and may be risen to stimulate appetite later on in this journal.

HUSBANDRY AND MAINTENANCE.

this is where the more time consuming part of discus keeping comes in. As these are still relatively young fish they need more frequent feedings of good quality food (which ill go into in details later). Therefore more water changes are required to keep nitrates low in the water. Also as fish grow they release a hormone that can stunt growth and the only way to reduce this is with fresh water. I will be carrying out daily 50% water changes with aged hma filtered water. The water is aged so the ph is more stable then brought upto the same temp as the tank. I have my set up made so that this tanks take me about 40 minutes. I'll also be wiping down the inside of the aquarium to keep things as clean as possible. As the fish grow and get larger I will lessen the water change routine to make way for the move to the display tank.

DIET AND NUTRITION.

discus require protein rich foods to reach their full potential. As small discus are growing they need frequent small meals to keep their metabolism high and encourage good growth. A discus that had a poor regime with diet when young becomes visably stunted as it reached adulthood. The staple diet of my discus will be homemade beefheart mix, Artemia, D-50 discus flake and tetra prima. Other foods such as frozen bloodworm and other frozen food will be fed occasionally. At first they will be fed between 4 and 6 times daily. This will be in small quantities so each meal is well recieved by the fish.

UPDATING THIS THREAD.

I will be showing all the trials and tribulations of this journey for all to see here. I will add pics of the full tank view and more close up shots to show the growth of the fish. I will be updating fortnightly so that hopefully changes can be seen.

I hope this is well recieved and any questions feel free to ask. I am by no means an expert but like to give these fish the best conditions I can.

DAY 1 (0 weeks)

this is a full tank shot. it has the 6 new discus and 3 from the same source that are larger that im growing on also. so for the purpose of this thread ignore the larger 3 discus.



these are closer shots taken the day after i settled them and already you can see the good colours.





the next photos will be in a couple of weeks....

Been keeping a close eye on these today for signs of illness and just general behaviour. I have only tried growing in lower numbers before (between 4 and 6), in this tank they are 9 discus in total and the security they have as a shoal is so obvious. They are constantly at the glass when I'm in the fish room wanting food. Is never recommend getting less than 8 discus for growing on now to anyone.

I've also tried them today on tetra prima and they took to it straight away. I thought as they are still small the size of the prima granules would be too big but they munched on them so well ill be introducing it to their diet immediately.

Cool thread i'll be following! iv always been keen on keeping discus but im far too busy to be able to look after them and maintain such pristine conditions! maybe 1 day tho

El_diablo wrote:Cool thread i'll be following! iv always been keen on keeping discus but im far too busy to be able to look after them and maintain such pristine conditions! maybe 1 day tho

With young discus as I have here you need the time to keep them but with sub-adults you can get away with less water changes. For instance 50% weekly will keep them happy.

WEEK 2 UPDATE

its now 2 weeks since i got these discus. they are coming along well and all feeding brilliantly. ive had a couple of problems with a red turk and one of the spotted fish but think ive got on top of it. basically i think both fish were slightly constipated. i noticed both to get a bit lethargic after feeding and hadnt seen them poo. i gave them both a 30 minute salt bath with epsom salts. since then ive seen poo in the turk so hopefully it wont be a problem now. here is a video of them feeding on beefheart mix.

Hi, just read your article, i have keep Discus over ten years now and have tried breeding , the best advise is (not how to keep Discus but how to keep Water), Get your water right and your half way there.I only gave up keeping Discus about a year ago,but am tempted to start again , i now keep and breeding Angelfish with great success. But as i say water and water temperature is vital form a good start followed by good quality food. Not forgetting dedication, and injoy keeping your Discus

WEEK 10 UPDATE

Haven't posted an update for a while as I've been too busy with other matters but thought I'd try to keep this thread upto date. All is well with the fish apart from the two smallest. These are the two lowest fish on the hierarchy and one of them has always showed signed bad signs, first with headstanding and second with a thinner sunken body than the rest that are chunky. I've treated with both flukeslove wormer and sterazin, he's had regular salt baths which seem to help him but he still remains thin. He's an active feeder so will just have to wait and see. As for the others they are all doing well. 2 of the spotted and the now re-identified yellow dragon are especially doing well. They are still Being fed between 4 and 6 times a day with daily 50% water changes. I'll post some pics i shot this morning.

i rly wish i had the time to go discus i think they r stunning, very nice kev

I have t admit they are time consuming when young but my 500 litre set up with adults takes the same care as a Malawi or south American setup.